


Kodak Moment

by dragonofdispair



Series: Roads [28]
Category: Transformers (Bay Movies), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-05-01
Updated: 2008-05-01
Packaged: 2018-02-26 18:43:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2662439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonofdispair/pseuds/dragonofdispair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kids are like the perfect spies in training: keeping an eye on them is a nightmare, and they get all sorts of places they aren't supposed to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kodak Moment

When even his master tensed, optics bouncing from the human sparkling to the drone and back, Scorponok knew today was not a day to push his luck. He'd made his peace with each of the Autobots, save Cliffjumper, and didn't fear them anymore. Not even Ironhide. But he knew that putting so much as a scratch on a human would undo every bit of acceptance he'd earned, even with Prime and especially with Ironhide, and the sparkling would be too easy to damage by accident.

So under Ironhide's watchful optics and watching for any sign of disapproval from his master, Scorponok slunk some distance away from the knot of humans he'd usually be so eager to pester. He judged he was far enough away when he saw the Autobots relax, and settled down into recharge.

A touch brought him out of it a few hours later. It was too soft to be hostile, or a prelude to an attack, and too small to be anything other than a human. He on-lined his optics to see the human sparkling very, very close, touching one of the face shields near his optics. He froze, halting even the fans of his cooling system, and reset all four optics.

The small human giggled at the blinking red lights and moved her hand from the shield to one of the optics themselves. Scorponok nearly jerked his head away from the girl, almost slammed the shields across his optics to protect them -- never had something come so close to his optics without damaging them -- but managed to stop himself. The sparkling's hand might have gotten caught and hurt if he hadn't. His optics flickered rapidly in indecision and the human giggled again.

Desperately, Scorponok scanned the area. Where was his master, the Autobots, the sparkling's creators, _anyone_? 

Master was there, his optics dark, not quite in recharge. The sparkling's female creator  was over there doing something with a pile of fibers in her lap, talking to Doctor Daniel Jackson. Everyone else was somewhere behind him, but he couldn't tell what they were doing, just that it involved a lot of driving and running around.

The tiny -- Primus! She was tiny, too small, too fragile -- human cooed softly, voice vibrating in a way that was eerily close to some of his own happier sounds. Scorponok would have found it reassuring if he wasn't so tense and _scared_ by the sparkling's proximity. His cooling system was starting to protest the fans being shut off, but he determinedly kept them still. What was he supposed to _do_. He couldn't do anything that might hurt her, but he wasn't sure what might hurt her and what wouldn't, so he did nothing, not daring to so much as click because the sound might startle her and then she'd fall against a sharp edge, and what would he do then? Ironhide and the humans and Ratchet and Bumblebee and even _Prime_ would be so mad at him then. He was going to be in enough trouble just for being close to her. He wasn't _allowed_ close to the sparkling. There was a _reason_ he wasn't allowed near the sparkling.

"Bug!" she declared and suddenly clambered onto his back. Ruthlessly he held every single component in his body still, even as he panicked and pinged Prime's communications system with a command link request to try and get his attention. The mech didn't respond and he pinged again. The only response was an automatic denial. A third time -- not so much as an optic flicker.

She was crawling around on him, softly singing "i-sy, bi-sy, spi-er ki-em up'a wawa-spou" and panic was almost overwhelming his systems. All his secondary weapons were up there. And that was far, far too close to his _tail_. Desperate and really, really hoping he wouldn't regret it, Scorponok found Ironhide on his scanners and pinged his communications system with a command link request. 

Ironhide turned the request down as automatically as Prime did, and for a very brief moment relief was equal to the panic. Then the sparkling moved again and panic and the need to not so much as twitch overwhelmed even the relief. He pinged Ironhide again.

Autobot footsteps reverberated over Scorponok's vibro sensors, coming closer. "Prime! What the frag is your bug doing?" He was still too far down the hill to see what was going on, but there should be no reason for Scorponok to be trying to link to _Ironhide_ , and he wanted to know what the frag was going on.

"Bug!" The little human squealed. 

His master's optics flickered on and Scorponok pinged his communications again, four times in quick succession not waiting for the denial, needing to catch his attention.

Prime's optics focused on the very, very still Scorponok and the sparkling crawling around dangerously close to the drone's weapons. An alert from his cooling system flashed in his processor, but all Scorponok had the attention for was relief that now his master would deal with the sparkling, hope that he wouldn't be punished too severely, and holding himself as motionless as stone.

 

888

 

He was ashamed to admit it, but when Sarah Lennox and her daughter had come to the "Nighttime Picnic with the Autobots" that Sam insisted on having, Optimus had been relieved that Scorponok had slunk away from the humans and settled into recharge. 

Usually he crowded near the group of humans, demanding that they pet him with the small, soft hands he seemed to find even more pleasurable than an Autobot's careful finger strokes. Both he and the humans were careful, and as the group had become more used to him, the Autobots no longer feared the drone would hurt them, and the teens and adults knew not to run their hands over any sharp edges.

But the human sparkling, the little girl, Annabelle Lennox... Optimus didn't think Scorponok would be anything but gentle with her, but he'd been built as a weapon and had many sharp edges and gaps where a very small hand could get caught and damaged. There were so many ways she could get hurt by accident. So Optimus had been relieved when Scorponok had taken one look at the youngest Lennox and chosen to recharge some distance from the group.

The evening had gone well. After the food had been eaten, almost everyone had gone down the hill to play a game of modified "flashlight tag" that had been devised. It involved a lot of running and driving around a field. Bumblebee and Ironhide had even goaded Ratchet into joining the fun with them and Cliffjumper. Optimus had watched Sarah Lennox put the fussy little girl down under several layers of blankets for the girl to sleep in. She'd told both Optimus and Daniel Jackson, who had decided against joining the game, that she'd probably sleep there until she was picked up to go home. Smiling, Optimus had settled into a power save mode, listening to the two humans talk and the distant sounds of the game.

Though he hadn't had to in months, refusing Scorponok's link requests were still so automatic that they didn't do more than register on his internal logs for him to review later.

Therefore the first clue he had that something wasn't right was Ironhide yelling his name from the bottom of the hill, "Prime! What the frag is your bug doing?" Optimus had just enough time start up his optics and think 'Scorponok --- wha --?' before being bombarded with a succession of panicked feeling link requests from the drone in question. He turned his attention to Scorponok.

There was little Annabelle Lennox, happily crawling around on top of an unnaturally still scorpion-'bot.

He turned to the two humans nearest him as the entire flashlight tag group arrived on the heels of Ironhide. "Mrs. Lennox, you or your husband might want to retrieve your sparkling."

Three voices laughing, two of which belonged to a pair of teenagers and the last to a mech, and _"So help me if you can -- I've got to get -- back to the house at Pooh -- Corner by one"_ playing out of a car stereo drowned out Sarah's gasp of surprise and alarm. The noise being made by the yellow scout drew the girl's attention and she yelled "Bee bee bee!" at him. 

"You three," Ratchet growled, "are not helping."

Captain Lennox was the one who stepped forward though. Bumblebee was, as already stated, laughing. Ratchet looked worried. Cliffjumper looked hostile. And Ironhide looked like he wasn't sure whether he wanted to laugh at or shoot at Scorponok.

"Hey little lady," Lennox called up to his sparkling, "you wanna come down from there?"

"Da-die," she called back, and let her creator climb up and retrieve her.

The very instant the two humans were no longer touching him, Scorponok darted away in a blur, stopping some thirty feet away, facing the group, back legs already dug into the dirt and shivering.

The glassy sound drew Optimus's attention away from the family tableau to the frightened drone. He took a step closer, thinking to calm him down.

And stopped when Scorponok wiggled deeper into the dirt, still shivering. Afraid of him -- the realization nearly shattered Optimus's spark. He had never -- _never_ \-- desired to see any sentient cower from him, and after the nine months since Scorponok's defection, he _especially_ didn't want to see this sentient cower from _anything_.

Aware that he was now the center of attention, Optimus crouched and held out his hand with the back toward the drone and fingers relaxed and slightly curled inward.  He knew from previous times where Scorponok had been hesitant to approach him -- though never _this_ scared -- that he interpreted this as both inviting and non-hostile. Mikeala had once compared it to the way a human would hold out a hand to a jumpy cat. Optimus didn't know enough about interacting with cats to confirm or refute that, and he certainly didn't know why it might calm cats down, but he knew why Scorponok thought it non-hostile -- bending the wrist down blocked Prime's energy sword so he couldn't draw the weapon without damaging himself and curling the fingers slightly inward made it harder to grab or hit the drone without warning.

"You're not in trouble," he told Scorponok gently, "It's not your fault and I'm not mad at you. You did well. You didn't do anything wrong. You don't get punished for doing nothing wrong..." and so on, the words apparently not nearly as important as the tone.

And slowly Scorponok responded. The shivering stopped and he crept closer until he rubbed against the back of Optimus's fingers.

Distantly he noticed Mikaela's comment, "Aww...just like a kitty", Annabelle's answering "Kitty-bug!" and Sam's snickering. 

But he turned his attention to Ratchet and Cliffjumper. "One of you please drive Doctor Jackson back to his apartment when you're all done here," then back to the drone, "I think we need to leave."

The answering chirr was timid, but enough. Optimus transformed and Scorponok hopped up behind the cab. Annabelle called "Buh-bye, kitty-bug!" as Optimus drove away. They left the lookout and the stressful little human sparkling behind to go find a parking lot where Optimus wouldn't look out of place and they could recharge without being disturbed.

 

888

 

Bumblebee never admitted that he and Sam had been the ones to first print out the image of Annabelle Lennox crawling on top of Scorponok. Epps didn't admit that, after seeing that first print, he'd been the one to make nearly fifty copies of it. Air Raid and Fireflight didn't admit that they'd been the ones to take the stack of copies and make sure they got pinned and taped up around the base. The base commander certainly never admitted that he'd taken one of the copies off the wall of the mess hall and kept it in his desk drawer. And if any of the soldiers knew anything about how the pictures had gotten where they were, they didn't admit it either.

Everyone agreed though, that it was one of the cutest things they'd seen in a while. 

 

fini

**Author's Note:**

> song credit:
> 
> "The House At Pooh Corner" The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band


End file.
